MoveAlong is a standalone script which is part of FredoTools. It allows Moving and Copying entities, as well as Rotating components and groups by their center along axes. MoveAlong is similar to the native Sketchup Move tool but provides some additional features:
Additional inferences (centers of arc, face, component / group)
Additional auto-lock directions
Lock of custom direction
Remote Inferences
Move along Direction, with possibility to pick and choose direction in the model
Move along Plane, with possibility to pick and choose plane in the model
Non interactive Move (easier to reach targets that would be occulted by the moving object)
Alignment of curves and objects along priviliged directions (see video below)
MoveAlong supports the other features of the native SU Move tool: copy, multiple copies, locking on axes, rotation of group / component, etc…
SU Versions: SU6, SU7, SU8, SU13, SU14 – works better with SU8 M1 and above
Platforms: Windows and Mac
Languages: English, French
Menus: by default, MoveAlong is installed in Tools > FredoTools. It does NOT appear in the Contextual menu.
Icon toolbar: Fredo6 Tools. There is only a single icon. By default, it is not shown. You need to go to the Default Parameters… dialog of FredoTools to enable the icon.
The plugin is free, for private and commercial usage.
MoveAlong_32.png
MoveAlong 1.0 - Overview
MoveAlong 1.1 - Remote Inferences - AutoSmooth
MoveAlong 1.2 - Alignment Mode
Launching MoveAlong It can be launched on a Pre-selection. If there is no selection, then you can pick entities to move by hovering over them. A button palette window appears. It allows controlling setting the working modes (Copy mode, Defer mode, Extended selection) as well as to lock / unlock directions on model axes.
MoveAlong Toolbar 2.png
As a general statement, MoveAlong behaves very similarly to the native SU Move tool.
Defer mode (non-Interactive move) The native SU Move tool always move the entities selected interactively. The drawback is that it may occult the target you want to reach. MoveAlong provides a non-interactive mode to avoid this inconvenience. You can enable / disable it by pressing TAB (or button in palette or contextual menu). A wireframe is moved instead of the selected entities so that you can access any point of the model, or even select a target belonging to the selected entities (for instance move a vertex of a face to its center). - Move mode: wireframe is in dashed line - Copy mode: wireframe is in plain, thick line
MoveAlong - Defer mode.png
Additional Inferences
Center of Arcs and Polygons: You hover over an arc or a polygon (as considered by Sketchup), the center of the arc or polygon is displayed (as a red cross +) and can be used as an inference for origin and target.
Center of Faces: You hover over a face, the center of the face is displayed (as a blue cross +).
Center and Corners of Components / Groups: when hovering over the elements of component or group, the center and edges of their bounding box is displayed. This works at any level of embedding. The center of bounding box is useful because it may be physically hidden within the component / group. With MoveAlong, you can still pick it in all cases. The center and corners of the bounding box can be used for origin and target.
Anchor and Leader of Text Labels (if this matters!)
Locking the current Direction When moving the mouse to reach the target, you can lock the current direction by pressing/releasing Shift.
MoveAlong - Locking current direction.png
Picking Directions and Plane in the model You can set a direction or plane by picking it from elements anywhere in the model. This can be done by just hovering over the element and either pressing ENTER or making a Long-Click.
In Vector mode
Picking an Edge or a midpoint --> direction of the edge
Picking a Face --> direction is the normal to the face
Picking a Guide Line --> direction is the line of the guide line
MoveAlong - setting direction.png
In Plane mode
Picking an Edge or a midpoint --> plane perpendicular to the edge
Picking an Vertex with 2 Edges --> plane defined by the 2 edges
Picking an extremity (vertex with one edge) --> plane perpendicular to the edge
Picking a Guide Line --> plane perpendicular to the guide line
MoveAlong - Custom Plane.png
To unset the constrained direction or plane, just press Arrow Down.
VCB – Offset – Multiple copies – Rotation angle
Rotation angle: just type the numeric value for degrees, or a value followed by a letter for specifying unit, for instance 30d (degrees), 3.14r (radians), 100g (grades), 50% (slope)
Offset: just type the numeric value: without unit, i.e. current model units, ex: 33.5 or 3’4”, or with units, ex: 3.2cm. Alternatively, you can specify the direction and offset by entering the value for each axes. For instance 3 4 5 will set the move vector to 3 in X, 4 in Y and 5 in Z. You do not need to enter all values and use the semi-comma ‘;’ as separator or space when non-ambiguous: ex: ;;4 will move by 4 unit along the Z axis (0 0 4 would work as well), 50.3; will move by 50.3 units along the X axis (50.3 0 would work as well). Note that space or semi-comma ‘;’ are used as separators in the VCB, because the dot and comma are reserved as valid decimal separators for international users.
Multiple copies: this is similar to the SU Move tool: - Multiple of offset: *n or nx are supported, ex: *3 or 3x - Divide of offset: /n is supported, ex: /3 If you type a negative value (ex: *-3, -3x, /-3), then multiple copies are generated on each side of the original copy. Below the result of typing '*-2'
MoveAlong - VCB - multiple on each side .png
Repeating the move Once you have moved a first object, you can move another object by the same vector and offset by double-clicking on it. Similarly, when you have rotated a group or component, you can double click on a red cross of another group or component to perform the same rotation.
MoveAlong 1.2b – 07 Jul 14: Update with fix of a bug signaled by dedmin.
MoveAlong 1.2a – 18 Jun 14: Update with fixes and additional features (Alignment Mode).
MoveAlong 1.1b – 17 May 14: Update with fixes and additional features (Remote inferences, AutoSmooth, ...). V1.1b inlcudes a fix for input of architectural units in VCB
MoveAlong 1.1a – 15 May 14: Update with fixes and additional features (Remote inferences, AutoSmooth, ...)
MoveAlong 1.0d – 20 Apr 14: Fixed a problem when selected entities are huge (signaled by rv1974)
MoveAlong 1.0c – 17 Apr 14: initial public release in FredoTools 1.8c
I really like movealong but have encountered a problem. I am running XP SP3 and Windows 8 both updated to final MS update and SU8. The problem comes when trying to use "Defer mode" and same occurs with either copy or move and plane or vector selected. The wirecage does not appear when a group (simple cube) is selected until I do a zoom then if I move the movealong cursor,the wireframe does not follow it until I do another zoom. Second case - if I select the group the wireframe does not appear until I run the cursor out of the drawing window,then it appears at whatever point I ran out of the dwg area. Then,if I move across the dwg area,the wireframe does not move until I leave the dwg area again and.as before,the wireframe moves to the point at which I left the dwg area. Every other function I have tried so far works just fine.
EDIT: No answer ??
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Last edited by g_wilson on Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
One observation: when moving a group, if you move the mouse over the rotation grips of the object the cursor sticks in rotation-mode (component-like behavior?).
edit: another thing I noticed (trying out the techniques from your youtube movie 8m54), if the two lines to the right are grouped and I enter the group and try to move the middle line in its plane to the intersection with the left line, no intersection is indicated. When grouping the left and right line it works though.
Once again, a great addition. Having fun trying out all the options.
Why? Why you are not the Project (TRMLR SU ) Manager? P.S. Please check PM. In short the 'move along' won't work with relatively heavy geometry. Could it get fixed? Thank you.
Fredo, many thanks for 1.8e update, it's great improvement! Another nuance- those Acad-like grey phantom lines of the initial position, which give posibility to snap. I noticed that not grouped\componented geometry unfortunately doesn't give this feature; grey phantom lines represent the object's bounding boxes (pic.1). Couldn't they represent the true wireframe (pic.2)? Thank you.
Rich O Brien wrote:Will we see it obey quad face convention in the future?
Enabling Thomthom's AutoSmooth while using MoveAlong has no effect.
Rich,
Good suggestion. It should go in the next release.
MoveAlong Autosmooth.gif
I use thomthom's conventions for quads - smooth = soft = true cast_shadows = false
Fredo
PS: Apparently the Move api (#transform_entities) behaves differently from the move tool regarding the creation / modification of entities. So it is more tricky.
Fredo, is it possible to replicate the Acad's Tracking (with numeric distance input) as shown on vid.1? And I can't figure out how do standard Move with Shift pressed (vid.2.) Is it supported in MoveAlong? Another little thing: this strip of beige with current snapping info.. could it stay permanently (no popping-up)?
rv1974 wrote:Fredo, is it possible to replicate the Acad's Tracking (with numeric distance input) as shown on vid.1? And I can't figure out how do standard Move with Shift pressed (vid.2.) Is it supported in MoveAlong? Another little thing: this strip of beige with current snapping info.. could it stay permanently (no popping-up)?
I cannot read the swf files. Could you display them or use another format.
To read a swf file just drag+drop it on your browser - it's a flash-movie and should then play...
@rv1974 You can constrain the native move/copy to align with the edge - hover over it and hold shift, then the movement is inference constrained along an extension of that edge, BUT any typed in the distance is taken from the picked point on the original object [along that vector]. You can of course use a premade guide-line offset the desired distance and snap to that using the inferred vector...
@TIG: Exactly, that's what I tried to illustrate with the 2nd vid. I just suggested to MoveAlong to support the Shift trick (with Acad's numeric input, if possible).
) Manager? 
